We celebrate success stories in America, but what we really love are stories with plot lines that rise and fall and rise again. Would Oprah be the queen of daytime TV if those pounds, once off, stayed off? Which brings us to Newt Gingrich, who as keynoter of a big Republican fundraiser on Monday clocked another notch on his comeback tour since his 1998 downfall. Just headlining the dinner was a triumph for Gingrich over his main rival for the chief party celebrity and potential presidential nominee, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Her would-she-or-wouldn?t-she dalliance with speaking?or even attending?the affair dominated Fox News for weeks.
She accepted then declined and then accepted again, yet not before Gingrich agreed to give the speech. Not wanting a smackdown between its two crowd-pleasers, the Republicans finally got Palin to agree to come as an honored guest. Gingrich pronounced that unlike Obama he was ?not a citizen of the world,? calling that ?intellectual nonsense and stunningly dangerous.?
Gingrich needs appearances like Monday?s to get on the short list of contenders for 2012. While he has more substance than Palin, he may suffer from the same flaws that have reduced her from the ?It? girl to a walk-on garnering mild applause at a fundraiser?a short attention span, skittishness, stridency, pronouncements without follow through, and a lack of attention to detail.
As for Palin, mail, invitations and requests from the Draft Palin movement stack up at her office. Her recent use of some lines from a Gingrich speech in one of her own has to be sheer sloppiness. If Republicans are ever to be a majority again, they have to hope someone other than these two emerges, although the impure need not apply.
?The author is a former White House correspondent